Plea To Hunters: Spare Black Ducks

If you go duck hunting along Florida's West Coast when the season reopens Dec. 10 and see some black ducks, don't shoot.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials are asking duck hunters to voluntarily avoid shooting the threatened species since more restrictive bag limits don't seem to be working.

Black duck populations have been declining for a long period, and biologists estimate there are fewer than half the number of birds that ranged the continent in 1955.

Along the Mississippi Flyway, the species suffered a 38 percent decline from 1975 to 1984.

The primary reason for the decline appears to be the disappearance of the species' wooded nesting grounds in the Northern United States and Canada.

The black duck's nesting region extends from the Atlantic Coast to the prairies, and much of its forested nesting habitat is being felled for urban development and agriculture.

Other causes, the biologists say, include lead poisoning, acid rain and hunting pressure.

After deciding that the latter evil is the one to eliminate during a short period of time, the wildlife service is asking Florida's duck hunters and those throughout the south to forego shooting the species.

This year the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission made the black duck a 100-point bird, meaning that a duck hunter may shoot only one per day. Although more restrictive bag limits helped reduce the hunter harvest, the biologists said many Mississippi Flyway waterfowl hunters were shooting just as many black ducks as they did before the tougher limits were imposed.

If hunters don't restrain themselves, the wildlife service may do it for them. The service may impose further hunting restrictions if the black duck continues to disappear, particularly in the Mississippi Flyway.